Inkjet printheads are widely used in printing mechanisms today. Those mechanisms, in turn, go into many products such desktop printers, portable printers, plotters, copiers, camera printers, transaction printers, video printers, point-of-sale terminals, facsimile machines, and all-in-one devices (e.g. a combination of at least two of a printer, scanner, copier, and fax), to name a few.
Printheads typically have a number of liquid ejection elements, often referred to as “nozzles”, that are arranged in a linear orientation having a particular length along the major axis of the linear array. This length is sometimes referred to as the “height” of the printhead, although the printhead can be orientated in any direction. Drops are deposited on a print medium, such as paper, as the printhead, the paper, or both are moved relative to each other. In products in which the length of the printhead along the major axis is much less than the size of both dimensions of the medium, movement of the medium relative to the printhead in one dimension may be coordinated with reciprocation of the printhead relative to the medium in an orthogonal direction in order to allow drops of the liquid to be deposited on the entire printable area of the medium.
Such reciprocation, however, reduces the throughput of the printing. Using a printhead, or an array of printheads, having a height at least as large as one dimension of the medium can improve printing throughput by eliminating the time associated with reciprocation of the printhead.
The printhead also has a “width”, or a length in a direction of the minor axis of the linear array, a direction that is orthogonal to the height of the column of nozzles. In general, the wider the printhead for a given length, the larger the area of the printhead, and the higher the cost of the printhead.